How to Backlink your YouTube Videos

As we already know Youtube is a part of Google and it is also the second largest search engine, and now we can see that using the right strategy you can get a higher ranking of Youtube videos in search engines. Google factors over 200 into its algorithm for ranking websites and backlinks at the top of that search list, so having more relevant backlinks on the content you post is more likely to show up on search engines. Knowing how to use backlinks and search engine optimization (SEO) will help you rank higher in search engine listings.

What is a backlink?

This is a link on another website that directs visitors to yours and by using a relevant backlink that is linked to their page, you can convey the information that the website is important in order to appear in search results. It can be considered as a way to share the link with other people who are interested in the content and depending on the website, it can be an important link to share in search engines.

Nofollow vs. Dofollow links

There are two categories, nofollow links and dofollow links in terms of SEO, on the one hand there are Dofollow links, which help your search engine ranking, and on the other hand there are Nofollow links, which for the most part do not rank in the search engines.

Ranking in Google is defined by algorithms and ideally links should be Dofollow, which is why Google created this distinction to avoid unfavorable link building practices in 2005, and today platforms like WordPress and other CMS software will automatically add the tag nofollow to comment links, therefore any spam-related comments cannot be seen or have any SEO benefits since they are nofollow links.

Link building for social media

Most of the time the links in social networks are Nofollow links, therefore web developers tell the search engine robots “this is a user generated link”, since the ideal is to be on the first page from Google with traffic, and also nofollow links still generate traffic.

How to check if your links are nofollow or dofollow

In order to check this, you can right click on the link and click “View Page Source”, in case you find a rel=”nofollow” in the HTML of the page, this means that it’s a Nofollow link, and if it’s not then it’s a Dofollow link.

Why do you need to backlink your YouTube videos?

Link building and brand awareness are related and also to the content of the published video, this happens nowadays in marketing and SEO. Therefore, if you use a good marketing strategy, you can get a lot of appropriate backlinks.

Looking at video analytics to gauge incoming traffic

If you have a higher percentage of “external” traffic, this means that search engines are more likely to rate your videos as credible and important to search listings, and this way you can have more organic search traffic for your videos.

How to backlink your videos

It is very important to first build the backlinks ethically, we can use an example, if you manage to have 10,000 links to your video one day, then only two or three in the next few weeks, but after a while you have another 2,000, this will make Google’s algorithm consider this behavior suspicious.

The above will render the backlink worthless as well as the content where you are spamming your link has nothing to do with the video. Therefore it is important that the content is in places where you will get viewers who want to see it, otherwise the videos may not be played and considered as unimportant, not only because of this but also considering SEO. Now let’s look at some ways to link your YouTube videos:

1. Collaborations

Collaborations have long been important, so you can collaborate with a brand that relates to the content you post on your YouTube videos, this gets people who may have never seen your content interested as they relate to what they are looking for, achieving more subscribers and views on your content; It also not only creates a more personal touch for the brand, but also helps boost SEO traffic.

2. Embed YouTube videos to your website and other related websites

With this way, you can have the opportunity to develop the SEO of your video and still get views, even if it is not really a “link building”. In case you have a video about a product, you can embed it on a relevant web page on your site, which will mean that Google will take your video and content as more important and relevant, giving it a higher ranking, as this generates more views and visits.

3. Share on social media

Depending on the audience, sharing YouTube videos on your social networks can have a big impact, and the more people who see your content and share it, the more your video will generate organic backlinks, in this case social networks are important. Some of the ones you can use are:

• TikTok
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Reddit

With this in mind, for example, Pinterest has over 433 million monthly active users, however, it is up to you and your audience which social network you want to use. You can also use sites like Repurpose.io to automate this whole process, you can set it up to post to your social network by sharing the content instantly after it’s posted on YouTube.

4. Create a dedicated blog post for each video

Blog posts can offer how-to tips, tutorials, or first-hand reviews, so sharing your video links on your blog can help a lot. You can also summarize the content of the video and its important points, and then expand on them in the writing on your blog.

5. Answer forums and Q&A sites

You can post helpful links to help support your arguments or provide answers to questions in forums on platforms like Reddit or Quora, by sharing your video links you can get more views of all content. Also using sites like Answerthepublic.com and if you have knowledge skills and can answer questions, you can do it with a video to post and share.

Other things to keep in mind

Using these strategies you can already have more audience, however your YouTube channel itself is also great for backlinks, to generate traffic and increase profile score.

Backlink on your channel

On your channel banner, you can add your most active social media sites and any relevant links to your About section in your description.

Include links in the YouTube video

In the description of the video you can add the link, ideally in the first line, which will make it unnecessary to expand the description. Likewise, it can be added to Youtube cards and end screens. For example:

• Playlists
• Other videos
• Polls
• Links to other websites

It is important to achieve this that you are accepted into the YouTube Partner Program to add custom clickable links, in order to achieve this your channel must have over 4000 hours of watch time and at least 1000 subscribers in the last year so far.

Conclusion

Using one or two of the steps you can link to your YouTube videos, which will help make a big difference in your view count. The videos you upload to YouTube make sure they are optimized and have relevant links, with great content for your audience, which will help you have more organic backlinks and direct traffic.